by Marie Reyes
“I’m so sorry, man. I didn’t know what to do. I should have come back. Where is Josie?”
“Thank you for coming. I don’t know where she is. I think Samuel still has her. This is Miguel by the way.”
Miguel let himself in the back and thanked Alex for picking them up.
“So, what now? Do we take you to a hospital?” he asked Michael.
Miguel spoke before Michael could even open his mouth. “No! No hospital. We get a sewing kit. I do it.”
“Where are we going to find a sewing kit?” Michael broke into a cold sweat, thinking of an amateur sewing him up with some cotton and thread. His mind tried to conjure up any way around it. “There is this one guy.” It seemed like a distant memory now, before things had gotten out of hand. That man he had met briefly in the bar in Arelanes was a surgeon. He didn’t know if he could trust the guy but he wanted a professional working on him. “There was this guy I met. He was a doctor, a surgeon. I met him in Arelanes”
“Álvaro?” Michael asked, wondering why Miguel hadn’t suggested it if he knew the guy.
“You know him?”
“He’d always be in La Cocina De Maya. Liked the ladies.”
“Yes. That restaurant. Is he a good guy? He gave me the creeps a bit but I feel like he’s harmless enough.”
“I know him only a little. He’s not in the game. Why would he help you?”
“Maybe if I pay him?” Michael wasn’t sure what surgeons earned in this area, and if he had anything of value to offer the almost perfect stranger.
“How would we even get in touch with this man?”
“He gave me his number. All my contacts are available in the cloud. It’s worth a try?”
“Not to be a downer, but what’s the plan beyond that?” Alex chimed in.
“We get Josie.” Michael didn’t even know where to begin, but he could worry about that later.
Aleksander’s satellite navigation struggled to find Álvaro’s house, but eventually they found it nestled in a town close to Arelanes. The place was less built up and more rustic. The simple houses nestled in amongst trees. Many looked hand-built by the owners with mismatched bricks and scrap iron roofs. The house they were looking for was the only blue house on that street, and they pulled up outside onto the dusty driveway.
Álvaro had been awake when they called, on his way back from work after a long shift, the annoyance and exhaustion clearly apparent over loud-speaker. He let Miguel do most of the talking, and here they were. They walked up to the boxy house with a satellite dish poking out of the top, and Miguel knocked on the door. They heard the noise of someone moving stuff around in the house, and Álvaro opened the door, gingerly peeking his head out to find three people waiting for him on the other side. His face looked so different from the other day, and his hair disheveled, dark shadows under his eyes.
“You better come in,” he said in hushed tones.
Álvaro already had some stuff ready: a bowl of water, towels, alcohol, cotton, and some instruments that he may have taken from work. Michael hoped he wouldn’t get in trouble on his behalf. A long wooden table had been cleared and placed in the middle of the room. He assumed Álvaro expected him to lie on it.
“Shit, they weren’t lying.” He inspected the more obvious gash on Michael’s arm first before switching his attention to his torso. “Do you have the money?”
“I don’t have anything. My wallet is—”
Miguel and Aleksander both pulled cash from their wallets and handed it over to Álvaro, who stuck it in his back pocket. “Shall we get started then?”
The table didn’t look particularly sturdy and Michael hesitated before putting his whole weight on it, but it did the job.
“Okay. First, I will clean.”
Michael looked up at the gray ceiling and was more comfortable than he had anticipated.
“Ahhh. Shit. You could have warned me.” The stinging pain made him unable to control his words as Álvaro poured alcohol over the wound on his arm.
“I find it’s easier if you don’t expect it.”
“Hmm. I’m not convinced.” Michael braced himself this time and managed to stay almost silent as Álvaro disinfected the injury on his side. He hadn’t even brought himself to look at it. It was best left a mystery to him.
He glanced over at the instruments that lay on a metal tray and decided he should just keep his eyes glued to the ceiling. He wished he could have had a stiff drink before the next stage, but Álvaro said it wouldn’t be a good idea. Maybe he wanted him to feel as much pain as possible, to punish him from keeping him from sleep. Mind over matter. It’s just mind over matter. It definitely hurt, he couldn’t lie about that. It was just about manageable. Alex walked over to the other side of the table and looked down at him. “You’re brave man.” Concentrating on Alex’s face and words distracted him from the pain a little. It was a strange sensation, sometimes sharp pain, but others just a weird pinching feeling. After not too long, Álvaro had finished with his arm and offered Michael to have a break after wrapping it up in some dressing to protect it.
Before starting again, Álvaro forced Michael to eat something and gave him some strong antibiotics. The powdery pills got stuck in his dry throat as he swallowed and disintegrated, leaving a harsh, bitter taste that reminded him of the pentobarbital.
“So. You should put a good word in for me with Josie.”
“I will.” Michael hadn’t told Álvaro the details of what had happened and had kept Josie out of it up until this point.
“Okay. Ready to carry on?”
“As ready as I’ll ever be.” He steeled himself for the next onslaught of pain. After a minute of grimacing and gritting his teeth, he started to get used to it, like when he got his one and only tattoo, he hadn’t got used to it enough to end up having another. The tugging and pinching at his side was somehow less painful than the arm, and it was comforting to know it was almost over. He looked over at Miguel, who was sat on a wooden chair and stared down at the floor. His face was devoid of emotion at that point, nothing behind his eyes.
“There you are.” Álvaro took a square shaped piece of dressing and secured it onto Michael’s side with surgical tape.
Michael breathed a sigh of relief before slowly bringing his legs down over the side of the table. “Would you mind checking this out?” He held up his hand to Álvaro showing his bent finger.
“Ouch. They really did a number on you. Not sure I really have what I need to sort that out.” He thought for a moment and then disappeared into another room for a minute and came back eating an ice-cream.
“Does ice-cream help you think?” Alex asked. Álvaro wolfed down the ice cream in a few mouthfuls and disinfected the wooden ice-cream stick. He held it up to Michael’s fingers and used it as a splint, keeping the pinkie finger joined with the ring finger as he wrapped a bandage around it.
“This will have to do for now. Now I mean this in the nicest possible way. Please get out of my house.”
Chapter Thirty Five
Back on the road again, Aleksander asked that inevitable question. “What are we going to do now?”
“We shoul—”
Miguel interrupted Michael. “I am going to deal with Samuel.”
“And what will you do when you find him?” Michael asked.
“Wrap my hands around his miserable neck.” The empty look he’d had earlier changed. His jaw clenched and his hands were balled into fists as if he was ready to swing a punch at the next person who spoke. The quiet tension in the car was palpable, and then a phone rang, some annoyingly upbeat ring-tone.
Miguel unclenched his hand and picked it up. “Hello,” he said gruffly. “How did you get this number?” The disgust oozed from his voice. Michael knew it was Samuel straight away by the hatred in Miguel’s face. He couldn’t imagine him loathing anyone else that strongly. Eventually Miguel spoke again. “We will be there,” he spat, and hung up.
“What did he say? Is Josie alive?”
Michael searched Miguel’s eyes for a reaction.
“He wants me, you and Alex to come to El Verdugo. It has to be all of us. And it has to be alone.”
“The hell we’re going in there alone. God knows how many people he has waiting for us.”
“No Policia. That will guarantee her death.”
“Not this time. If we do this how they want, we all die. If we have backup, at least some of us make it out alive. You’re the only one of us that’s armed. I’m telling you, going in there alone is a stupid idea.” Michael couldn’t believe he was talking to him this way. Despite having a soft spot for the man for saving his life, there was something about him he still found intimidating.
“Okay. We go in first. Have a head start. We can call the police just before. Then they think we’re alone.”
Aleksander stopped the car in the middle of the road. “Listen guys. I’m sorry but, I can’t do this. This is too much. I don’t want to die, man.”
“It needs to be all of us,” said Miguel.
Michael could see the agitation rising in his face. “Come on, Miguel. I met Alex randomly in some hostel. He owes me nothing. He has already done so much for me. I can’t ask him to die for us. He has no reason to die for us. You know it’s not fair to ask that of him.”
“You want to talk fair?” His loud voice made Michael tense up.
“Fine, fine. I go.” Alex tried to placate him.
“Alex, you’re being stupid. If Miguel scares you, Samuel Hernandez and someone nicknamed the fucking Executioner is going to make you have a fucking heart-attack. This is life and death we’re talking here. Miguel is not going to shoot you. Trust me. Don’t be pressured into doing something you might regret.”
“You have no idea what I am capable of.” Miguel got out of the car to take a breath and leaned against the wheel arch, rubbing his face. Michael opened his door and walked around to check on him. Miguel looked thoughtful for a minute before speaking again. “That cenote. I used to play there when I was a kid, and a teenager. You know what I use it for now?”
“What?”
“Samuel and I have dumped bodies there. I put bodies in there.” Miguel was crying now, and it shocked Michael to his core. Certain people just were not supposed to cry. “I’ve killed. Not because the person was any worse than I, just because they were on the wrong side. I need to make things right.”
Michael leaned next to him, taking in a deep breath of fresh air. “You know, forcing an innocent guy to take a bullet, it’s not right.”
“I know.” Miguel sighed and went to get back in the car, still looking pissed-off.
***
The sun was rising by the time they started making their way to the address that Samuel had given. The fiery orange-streaked canvas did not inspire Michael the way the sunset had. It glowed like a warning light, flashing just for them. As far as Miguel believed, El Verdugo’s main property was on the outskirts of Playa del Carmen, and he had never been to this place before. Located between Chetumal and Felipe Carrillo Puerto, there were no other properties on this stretch of road, just trees, road, trees, road, and more trees. They would have driven straight past the place if Miguel hadn’t noticed it, nestled in the jungle, hidden from the main road. He shouted for Aleksander to apply the brakes. Not wanting to be too close, Alex carried on, until they were, what he felt was a safe distance away. He parked up the car and shut off the engine.
“So, here we are.” He had that look, that slightly awkward look that travelers had before going their separate ways, one of sadness and sentimentality, nostalgia for a period of time that wasn’t even quite over yet. “I hope you understand—”
“Say no more.” Michael could tell Alex felt bad. He could tell by the guilty look on his face. His head hanging down, not quite able to look him in the eye, like a dog who had stolen food from the table. People didn’t sacrifice themselves for people they barely knew, that was a given. Hell, a lot of people barely make sacrifices for people they have known for years: colleagues, lovers, family.
“We will have a drink when this is all over. I think we should have reunion a year from now. What’ya say?”
Michael knew this was an impossibility on so many levels, but if it made Alex feel better. “Sure.” He patted his shoulder in a brotherly fashion.
“Will you reconsider waiting for the police? No need to make more dangerous than need be.”
“The plan’s the same. You call them before you leave. Then you get as far away from here as possible. And no matter what happens, always remember that game of ring of fire in Pueblo.”
“How could I forget? You drink enough to bring down a horse.” They went for a formal handshake. It was the only way Michael could think of to display his mutual respect. Michael got out of the car and inhaled the fresh morning air. All Miguel gave Alex was a nod before getting out of the car and checking his weapon.
“Let’s do this then,” Michael announced. They walked back in the direction of the house and he took one last look back at the car, feeling the 6am breeze skim his arms and face. Everything felt heightened—the slightest sound accentuated. Shoes scuffing on dirt. The gentle murmurs of the forest. He could still barely wrap his head around the concept that once one was dead, they could feel nothing. The harder he tried to imagine the absence of anything, the more he struggled. Consciousness is all he had known, and soon, every last piece of himself, besides the physical vessel, would be gone. He always rationalized that a person was really just a bunch of synapses firing, nothing special. Memories meant nothing at the end. Everyone was the same. Flesh and blood. A bundle of impulses, urges and instinct. Biological computers processing our surroundings just like everyone else. There were billions of people on this earth. On this sunny Tuesday with clear skies, his imminent death meant little in the grand scheme of things. The world would keep spinning. His mind always spouted this kind of gibberish when he thought he was close to the end. He needed to snap out of it, be on guard, present.
The house was not far now. “So, we still just walking through the front door?” Michael asked. He was essentially just a human sacrifice at this point, someone to throw into the cenote, an offering for better things to come. It was unlikely his sacrifice would mean anything. It wasn’t as if Josie was getting out of there either. He was just voluntarily adding himself to the body count. At least this way, he might be remembered as a hero by someone out there, rather than a coward, not that he believed that suicide made someone a coward anyway, but it was hard not to internalize the comments he had seen on the internet whenever the latest celebrity suicide would hit social media. Death was death. Humanity liked to pretend that offering yourself to death was noble when it was in society’s best interest. Being cannon fodder was okay, but there was no need to lose a willing wage-slave if they didn’t have to.
“Michael! Head in the game.” Miguel’s stern voice made him stand to attention. “Take this.” He passed him a blade. It wasn’t much, and they would probably be searched and disarmed upon entering.
“I wonder how many men they have?” It was all starting to feel startlingly real now. It was strangely quiet, and they couldn’t see anyone from the front of the building. The place looked abandoned, with no lights on, and off-white bars over the dark windows.
The surrounding forest had taken over the boundary walls. Vines crept their way up, weaving through gaps in the brick, pushing out chunks of mortar as they consumed the wall.
Chapter Thirty Six
It felt strange watching Miguel just go up to the door and knock, like a guest coming around for drinks. Nothing happened. The door remained closed. Miguel pounded his fist on the door this time.
“This doesn’t feel right,” Michael said, stating the obvious.
“Maybe we go around the back,” Miguel suggested, peering down the overgrown path down the side of the house, and at that moment the sound of a security latch sent him racing to the front of the door. The minute the latch had been lifted, before the door
could be opened more than half an inch, his foot smashed against the door and he burst into the house like a charging bull, gun in hand. The door had hurtled forward with such force that it slammed back on itself after it hit the wall, almost shutting in Michael’s face, and as he went to open it the ear-splitting noise of Miguel’s gun firing sent him ducking for cover. The door creaked open, and he waited, crouched, with his hands over his head, to see what it revealed. A man Michael didn’t recognize lay on the floor. The mouth hung open so wide, it looked like it was disconnected from the jaw. Blood covered the floor and wall, the splatter marks almost reaching up to the ceiling. Samuel stood against the back wall with another man, watching as two men restrained Miguel, holding him down on the floor. He spat and shouted as he struggled. Even between the two of them, they could barely keep him down. The rage wouldn’t let him stop. Michael was surprised they hadn’t killed him already and wondered what they wanted from them. They could have been killed a million times over already. He stepped inside, lifting his legs up high to avoid treading on the body in front of him. He felt strangely accustomed to seeing dead bodies now.
The man that stood with Samuel stepped out from behind the shadows at the back of the room and walked towards Michael. Each step, slow and deliberate. His footsteps echoed on the hard-bare floor “It’s nice to finally meet you. I see your friend isn’t here, but no worry. It wasn’t hard to find out all about Aleksander Janssen. He will be dealt with.” The man was short and slim. Although he hadn’t introduced himself yet, Michael was certain this was El Verdugo. The way Samuel carried himself around this man. He respectfully kept back, hands down in front of him, not saying a word, like a mourner at a funeral. Somehow Michael had expected something different of El Verdugo, not this compact man that stood at his eye level. The news that Aleksander would not come out of this unscathed should have been the last straw, but he felt compelled not to let his emotions show.
“Where is Josie?” He managed to get the words out without stuttering or wavering.
